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More phonery

Sorry about the home page delays.

This week I have been repairing some security bits in the guts of the Pub Website, whilst investigating some issues Hopwas was having I found some code that needed repairing. Also I have been fiddling with a mobile phone app. For those who want a technical breakdown of it, I have done one on my blog.

If you have an iPhone, or an Android based phone then you should download the application Layar, it is part of a new buzzword in applications called Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality is where the camera is switched on and you see the output on the screen with additional information. Using the information we already have for the Google Maps I have created a layer to be shown through the Layar application.

To be honest it is a bit of a gimmick but a fun one. We are taking into account whether the pub has its map point corrected on our site, so it makes all those corrections that people have made doubly useful. I am planning to get Dave to set some time aside and correct all of Bristol.

To the publicans we have looking at this it is worth checking that the map point is accurate for their pub.

Anyway some screen shots.

Me using Augmented Reality to find the Bunch of Grapes (I am sure you can see how useful it really is ), the other points are pubs on the other side of the buildings

A map view showing local pubs from a nearby location:

The list of nearby pubs from the same location:

A quick PG tip
For those correcting map points, once I have clicked on the link to correct a map point I tend to click on the Satellite view, then zoom in a bit so that I can try and spot either the pub garden or the smokers table out front, and then just plonk the point in the middle of the pub.

A quick PG tip
For those correcting map points, once I have clicked on the link to correct a map point I tend to click on the Satellite view, then zoom in a bit so that I can try and spot either the pub garden or the smokers table out front, and then just plonk the point in the middle of the pub.

It is a fun app, and was really easy to do this on the back of the Google Maps work, certainly no excuse to buy an iPhone or Android though.

What is very nice is it is all free, the Layar writers let phone users install for free, and they let us publish the layer for free. At some point in the future I am guessing they will charge us to display the layer and that won't be so great for us.

There is the potential for us to monetise it a little though, what I haven't shown in those shots is that when you select a pub you get some options, for the moment we have got 'View Pub on Pubs Galore'. It is possible to put 'view official Pub Site' and 'Phone Pub' though. Whilst I don't think either will earn pubs appreciable traffic, I think it is a good thing to offer them and fun for them to have in their marketing - a talking point.

For those correcting map points, once I have clicked on the link to correct a map point I tend to click on the Satellite view, then zoom in a bit so that I can try and spot either the pub garden or the smokers table out front, and then just plonk the point in the middle of the pub.

Blimey! Never thought of that! I'm learning all the time. For instance, yesterday, I learned that a rolling the mouse over a pub name shows the pub on the area map in the town listing (as long as you check "Show map points"). Obviously, you all found that out long ago, but I'm set in my ways .

Back to the first point, and I can already see that I ought to shift the lollipop for the pub I added yesterday! And that probably also explains the microscopic shift in the location of The Lively Lady.

Blimey! Never thought of that! I'm learning all the time. For instance, yesterday, I learned that a rolling the mouse over a pub name shows the pub on the area map in the town listing (as long as you check "Show map points"). Obviously, you all found that out long ago, but I'm set in my ways .

Back to the first point, and I can already see that I ought to shift the lollipop for the pub I added yesterday! And that probably also explains the microscopic shift in the location of The Lively Lady.

To be fair I doubt many users of the site know about the Show map points feature. This site needs instructions. As a developer the target is to make it so obvious that people just know how things work, I fail frequently in that target. Hopefully it makes it fun when people find it though . Soup was surprised to discover you could drag the maps around on the pub pages, which is another thing I need to make more obvious at some point.

That Lively Lady correction was a little pedantic I must admit, we do accept them if it makes it more accurate, and I can try and justify it with a wacky iPhone App now.

Edit: Just realised that all of this rather implies that Ed's idea of a PG tip was actually a very good one, 3 potential tips already on this page that could just be randomly show on the front page. Could do with some on using the Forum as well

Last edited by Conrad; 20-11-2009 at 18:32.
Reason: Suddenly thought of some more